Up to 90,000 students 'in Britain illegally'
Up to 90,000 students 'in Britain illegally': Thousands fail to attend courses and some don't even register
Ministers have been notified of up to 90,000 foreign students who may be living in Britain illegally.
Audits by universities and colleges have thrown up tens of thousands of students who may have broken the rules by failing to attend their courses or even register.
In August, London Metropolitan University had its licence to bring in foreign students after inspectors found thousands of illegal immigrants were studying there.
Since then, hundreds of other institutions have been examining their books to find if they have students who should not be in Britain.
The Border Agency revoked the Met’s licence after it discovered a quarter of overseas students sampled were in the UK illegally and around half may not have been attending lectures.
Problems have also been discovered at Teesside university and Glasgow Caledonian university.
UK Border Agency chief executive Rob Whiteman told the Home Affairs committee it had received 90,000 notifications since the Summer.
He said: ‘We are now working through them. We have a new team in the new year in the Liverpool area which includes some DVLA staff transferring over and those 90,000 notifications we have received will be processed by the end of March in terms of triaging them, making a decision on whether there’s important information in them.
‘Because the student notifications are greater than we expected - the London Met position led to a great many notifications coming through - we have created an additional team.’
Immigration Minister Mark Harper told the Committee that revoking London Met’s highly-trusted status had served as ‘a lesson’ to colleges and universities over ‘what would happen if they didn’t meet their sponsorship requirements’.
‘I think perhaps if they weren’t taking that seriously I think they will do now,’ he said.
Mr Whiteman also admitted that the Agency had found a backlog of 50,000 applications from immigrants which have not been entered into the UKBA database.
He said it should be cleared by March.
Committee chairman Keith Vaz asked Mr Whiteman if he could confirm the size of cases for entry to the UK that have been received but not put on the agency’s database.
After hearing the figure was 50,000, Mr Vaz said: ‘You have given me a straight and astonishing number.’
Mr Whiteman said the backlog would be cleared by March.
He said: ‘You must remember we receive one million applications a year. We work on the basis that we want all cases put on the system in a week.’
Last week Home Secretary Theresa May said she wanted to eradicate the abuse of the student visa system and encourage only the ‘brightest and the best’ to come to Britain.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...#ixzz2FU9IRsmN
No surprises here
Quote Reply
Plus surely students come here to study,not bring their dependants and kids?And the amount it costs to come here,visas,study fees etc plus a lot of people I have interacted with who were here as "Students" yet both I and they knew that was a smokescreen to get their foot in the door with no intention of leaving makes me somewhat suspicious of any students here on cheap throw-away courses 
I remember telling her "I dont think so" but then the real story came out,he is still here,working unlimited hours,but his visa certainly doesnt say pizza-shop manager,it says student 
